


Tonight, Tonight

by transdimensional_void



Series: I Know You Better Than You Fake It [3]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 90's Music, Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Emetophobia, Fluff, Goth!Dan, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Neglect, Nerd!phil, Panic Attacks, References to Drugs, Sex, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 13:00:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5005756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transdimensional_void/pseuds/transdimensional_void
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Goth!Dan has secrets, nerd!Phil has questions, and they both just want to have sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tonight, Tonight

Phil shoved his hands in his pockets and tried to look as nonchalant as possible. The girl behind the counter was _definitely_ staring, but he knew it wasn’t him she couldn’t tear her eyes from.

 

Daniel, on the other hand, seemed not to have noticed the way the girl’s eyes had locked onto him. He was too focused on reading the label of one of the little bottles he’d pulled from the shelf and comparing it to the label of the one he held in his other hand. He gave each one an experimental shake, and the sound of all the little pills inside rattling made Phil cringe. He willed his eyes not to meet the girl’s.

 

“How many thousands of IU’s do you think I actually need daily?” he asked Phil without looking up from the bottles. “Twenty-five hundred? Three thousand? Five thousand?”

 

“Erm,” Phil murmured, seeing out of the corner of his eye the way the girl at the till was leaning forward over her counter to catch their conversation. “I guess just get the one with the most? Just in case?”

 

“Five thousand sounds like a lot…” Daniel muttered. Nevertheless, he shrugged and put the other bottle back on the shelf.

 

They’d gone to the clinic together a couple of weeks before, where Phil’d had to go into a tiny room with a nurse and answer a lot of very personal questions, the answers to which had made the nurse look at him funny. Okay, maybe it was a little weird that someone who’d never so much as gotten a blow job wanted to get tested for STD’s, but Daniel had said they should go together, and he wanted to be supportive.

 

When he’d asked Daniel why, exactly, he thought they should go get tested, his boyfriend had pointed out that just because he was a virgin didn’t mean he’d never done _anything_ before. That had made Phil simultaneously curious and nervous. Curious, because he’d never been close friends with anyone who had any more experience than he himself had, and nervous because it only reminded him just how wide a gulf there was between him and his boyfriend. Daniel had gone on to say something about how it was a good habit to get into, but Phil had been stuck still trying to imagine what — and who — Daniel might have done before.

 

They’d gotten their results back just today and discovered that, while neither of them were suffering from any diseases or infections, Daniel did have a Vitamin D deficiency. 

 

“You could start tanning,” Phil had suggested, reading the letter from the clinic over Daniel’s shoulder as they sat on his bed.

 

The other boy had given him a look and then tossed the papers onto his bedside table.

 

“I’ll take supplements,” he had firmly stated, and now here they were at the chemist, and Daniel was dropping the pill bottle into the basket over his fishnet-encased arm. Phil breathed a small sigh of relief and turned toward the counter.

 

“Wait,” Daniel murmured, grabbing Phil’s hand to stop him. Phil’s heart was suddenly in his throat, and his stomach felt all fluttery. Daniel had never held his hand in public before.

 

“What?” he breathed, staring down at their joined hands.

 

“There’s something else we should get,” Daniel explained as he started pulling Phil down toward the end of the aisle. The fluttery feeling in Phil’s stomach turned to panicked churning. _Crap_. _Crap crap crap crap_. If Daniel meant what he thought he meant—

 

“My friend told me this kind feels really good,” Daniel was saying, and when Phil looked to where he was pointing, his worst fears were confirmed. They were shopping for condoms. His vision went all staticky like a TV that’d lost reception, and he found he couldn’t properly read the label on the package Daniel was pointing at.

 

“Phil? Are you still with us, Phil?”

 

Daniel’s hand was waving in front of his eyes, so he blinked and shook his head. Right. They were just buying condoms. That was it. No big deal. People did it all the time.

 

“Yeah, sorry. What were you saying?” Phil tried to force his voice to sound normal, but it still came out a bit shaky.

 

The corners of Daniel’s dark maroon lips twitched up.

 

“I was asking what size you think you need.”

 

Phil felt like his whole body had just burst into flame. He was pretty sure his face must have turned a lovely shade of beet.

 

“Oh, er,” he said and then mumbled a number.

 

Daniel’s expression turned into a full-on smirk, but it seemed he had decided to be merciful, for he grabbed two boxes off the shelf, dropped them in his basket, and then led Phil back up to the front of the store. Phil was still so dazed he didn’t even notice the way the girl at the till suddenly became very interested in studying her fingernails as they approached her counter. 

 

“Will that be all for you?” she asked as she rang up Daniel’s three items.

 

“That’s it,” he grinned at her. If Phil had been paying attention, he might have seen the way his boyfriend’s smile had caused a faint pink to appear along the girl’s cheekbones. Instead, though, he was focused on the fact that Daniel had still not let go of his hand.

 

He held onto it right up until they reached the exit, when he at last dropped it to push the door open. Phil noticed that he didn’t take his hand again once they were outside, and he couldn’t help feeling a bit relieved about it. Maybe if they lived in a big city like Manchester or London or somewhere, he’d feel okay walking down the street in broad daylight holding another boy’s hand. In their little town, though, it didn’t seem like a particularly healthy decision.

 

By the time they reached Daniel’s house again, evening was near, and Phil figured he should head home. When he said so to his boyfriend, though, the goth boy pulled him inside, shut the door and pushed him up against it.

 

“It’s a quick walk back to yours,” he murmured against Phil’s neck. “Just let me kiss you for a few minutes before you go.”

 

Phil couldn’t find any particular reason to object, other than the fact that there was almost zero possibility it would actually end up being only a “few” minutes. Two minutes later, they were on Daniel’s bed, and if Phil hadn’t been so preoccupied with Daniel’s lips making their way down his bare chest, he might have taken a moment to congratulate himself on his powers of prediction.

 

When Daniel’s lips moved past his belly button, and he felt fingers creeping up to the flies of his jeans, Phil’s brain suddenly felt like there was an alarm bell going off in it. Wait. Were they actually going to have sex, like, right now? This evening? Without even talking about it first or—

 

Downstairs, there was the distinct, loud sound of the front door creaking open, and they both froze.

 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Daniel whispered.

 

“Da-an!” someone yelled from downstairs, and in a flash, Daniel was off of Phil and tossing his shirt to him from where it had ended up on the floor.

 

“Put that on,” he shot over his shoulder in an urgent whisper as he dashed over to the mirror on his dresser to try to do something about his smudged lipstick. “Here!” he added after a second, tossing a wad of tissue at Phil, who just stared at it for a moment. Then it clicked that he was meant to be cleaning Daniel’s lipstick off his face…and neck…and… _Crap._

 

“Dan?!” the person called again, the voice alarmingly nearby. Phil was scrubbing his skin as hard as he could, knowing that without a mirror to check in he was probably going to miss a spot. Daniel, meanwhile, was stumbling over to the door of his room, which he flung open, stepped through, and then all but slammed shut behind him.

 

“Oh, there you are,” said a voice from just outside. Phil took the opportunity to leap off the bed and examine himself in the mirror Daniel had vacated. Yep. He’d missed a splotch of maroon near the base of his neck and another somewhere over near his ear. He could hear Daniel’s low voice on the other side of the room and then the other voice replying more loudly. He thought it might be a woman. Dan’s mum maybe?

 

“Have you got someone in there again?”

 

Phil felt his throat close up. He shoved the used tissues into his pockets and then, scanning the room in a panic, dashed over to Daniel’s CD player where it sat on the floor and plopped down next to it.

 

“Oh, yeah, my friend is over,” he heard Daniel saying. So, whoever the person out there was, Phil was just Daniel’s “friend” to them. Good to know.

 

“With the door closed?”

 

Phil pulled Daniel’s crate of CDs over to him and did his best to look like he was searching through it for something. And not a moment too soon, for even as he grabbed up a CD at random, Daniel’s bedroom door swung open to show his boyfriend standing beside a tall, dark-haired woman who had her hand on the door knob.

 

Daniel stared at him for a moment and then, perhaps inspired by the sight before him, said,

 

“Yeah, we were listening to music and didn’t want to disturb anyone.”

 

“Oh,” the woman said, eyeing Phil up and down with a piercing expression that made him feel rather like an animal in a zoo. “You have a boy over for once.”

 

It took all of Phil’s self-control not to give Daniel a startled stare at that. Somehow, though, he managed to instead get to his feet and offer the woman what he hoped was a polite smile.

 

“Yeah,” Daniel was saying, not looking at Phil, “This is Phil. Er, Phil, this is my mum.”

 

Phil cleared his throat, walked over and offered a hand.

 

“Nice to meet you,” he said, surprised at how normal his voice sounded.

 

Daniel’s mum blinked down at his hand for a few moments before taking it and giving it a few firm shakes.

 

“And how did a nice, polite boy like you end up friends with my son?” she asked him when she let go of his hand. She had keen brown eyes and red lipstick almost as bright as her son’s was dark.

 

“We, erm,” Phil cleared his throat, wracking his brain for a plausible-sounding lie. ‘He broke a guy’s nose for me because I was about to get thrashed’ somehow didn’t seem like a story that would impress this woman much. 

 

“We met at the record store,” Phil said, inspiration striking. It wasn’t even a lie, really, even if they weren’t actually inside the store at the time.

 

“I see,” said Daniel’s mum, and Phil suddenly felt like maybe it hadn’t been such a good story after all. She just had this look in her eye that made him feel like she had already guessed every single one of his deepest secrets. But then, to his relief, she turned her attention back to her son. “I just stopped by for a change of clothes. Do you need anything?”

 

Daniel shook his head and mumbled something that sounded kind of like a “no.”

 

“Well, you know how I feel about you having people in here with the door closed,” she said, shooting Phil a look again, “though I guess there’s no chance of this one getting pregnant.”

 

Phil couldn’t keep his eyes from going wide this time, though at least Daniel’s mother had already turned her gaze back to her son.

 

Daniel was staring at the floor, and his entire face had gone a violent shade of pink.

 

“We’ll keep the door open,” he said to the floor.

 

“I’ll see you later,” was all his mum said in reply. “Nice to meet you, Phil.” And then she disappeared down the dark hallway, leaving the two of them staring anywhere but at each other.

 

After a moment, Phil walked back over to the crate of CDs and sank down next to it again. Daniel followed behind, crouching down nearby and pulling his black-clad knees up to his chest. He wouldn’t meet Phil’s eyes, and Phil’s stomach was twisting all into knots.

 

They sat there in silence for ten minutes, Phil pulling CDs from the crate at random and stacking them on the carpet next to it. It gave his hands something to do so that they wouldn’t shake.

 

Finally, they heard the door downstairs open and close again, and Daniel let out a long sigh.

 

“Fuuuuuuuuuck,” he groaned. “Of all the fucking moments for her to finally decide to put in an appearance.”

 

“Daniel,” Phil said, his voice very, very small. “What did she mean by—“

 

“Oh my god,” Daniel’s eyes darted up to meet his at last. “Phil, I swear to god I’ve never fucking got someone pregnant before. She just _says_ things.” He paused. Closed his eyes and shook his head. “She doesn’t approve of me,” he said. “She’s convinced that I’m fucking up my entire life.”

 

He put his head down on his knees, and Phil thought for a moment he might be about to cry.

 

“I think she’s actually looking forward to the day she finds out I got arrested or OD’ed on drugs or something because she’ll finally be able to say, ‘I told you so,’” he mumbled into his knees. “But, you know, it’s not like she’s ever even fucking here to see what my life is really like.”

 

Phil chewed on his upper lip for a moment, trying to think of something to say to that. When he couldn’t come up with anything, he instead scooted over next to the other boy and put an arm around his shoulder.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said.

 

Daniel lifted his head then, but only so that he could rest it on Phil’s shoulder instead. Phil could feel the warmth of his skin through the thin fabric of his sleeve. It was a good feeling.

 

“You’re so fucking nice,” Daniel muttered into his shoulder. “Why are you so nice to me?”

 

Phil frowned. He didn’t really understand what Daniel was asking him. Weren’t people just supposed to be nice to each other? Especially to people that they liked?

 

“Is your mum nice like you?” Daniel continued before Phil could come up with an answer to the first question.

 

“Yeah,” Phil said, frowning even more deeply as he tried to think about what it meant to say that his mother was “nice.” He’d never considered the question before, but now as he thought about his mum going to the clinic to get brochures for him and telling him she wanted to meet his boyfriend and always remembering how he liked his tea… Yeah. Yeah, his mum was really nice. Even when she irritated him, he realized that underneath it all, he actually really liked her as a person. And considering what he’d just seen of Daniel’s mum, maybe that wasn’t always the case.

 

“I guess I should just suck it up and go meet her then,” Daniel was sighing.

 

“You don’t have to if…” Phil started but then stopped himself. “But I think you’d really like her. And she’d like you too.”

 

He heard the other boy exhale a long breath, and he felt a few tendrils of air tickling the side of his face.

 

“God I need a smoke,” Daniel muttered then and sat up straight. “And you wanted to go home half an hour ago.”

 

Phil understood that this was his cue to leave, so he stood and offered the other boy his hand. When he’d pulled Daniel to his feet, he leaned over and placed a final, soft kiss against his lips.

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” he said.

 

“Yeah,” Daniel said, reaching over and wiping his lipstick from Phil’s lips with his thumb.

 

 

“You’re home late,” Phil’s mother commented as he walked past the door to the family room some time later.

 

His thoughts had still been stuck somewhere back at Daniel’s house, and he’d been intending to head straight up to his room so he could brood about it some more, but her words made him pull up short.

 

“Sorry,” he said, pushing the door open further and stepping into the room. She was sat on the couch watching something on TV that he didn’t pay any attention to. “I was at Daniel’s and his mum came home,” he said, whether as an excuse for why he was late or because he wanted to tell her about what he’d seen, he wasn’t sure yet.

 

“Oh, you met his mum?” she said, turning down the volume on the TV and turning to face him. “Does that mean I finally get to meet Daniel?”

 

“Yeah, I think so, actually,” he said. He was still kind of hovering near the doorway, undecided about whether he was going to walk in and sit down with her or escape up to his room like he had been planning to.

 

His mother’s expression warmed into a smile.

 

“Excellent,” she said. “Shall we have him over for dinner sometime soon?”

 

“Okay,” Phil nodded. “I’ll, er, ask him what day would be good.”

 

She smiled and picked up the remote control again, but Phil took another step forward, making her turn her attention back to him.

 

“I, er, just wanted to say—” He cleared his throat a few times. “Thanks…for, erm… Just, thanks.”

 

She stared at him for a moment, and he felt prickles of sweat breaking out across his skin. This was so bloody embarrassing. But, still, he felt compelled to say it.

 

“You know I love you,” she said at last, offering him an amused smile.

 

“I love you too,” he mumbled and then turned and hurried out of the room before things could turn any sappier.

 

 

The following day was a Friday, and Phil knew now that Daniel got off work at the record store on Fridays just about the same time he got done with his classes for the day. So as he rounded the corner of the red brick building, he was expecting to see his boyfriend there against the wall having his after work cigarette. Instead, there was no one.

 

Phil stood outside for a few minutes, waiting to see if Daniel would come out. When he didn’t, Phil resorted to standing at the edge of the shop window and peaking inside, trying to see if he could get a glimpse of the goth boy on the other side of the dingy glass. He saw someone behind the counter, but they were clearly not Daniel.

 

Phil sighed and walked over to the door. He’d never been inside the shop. Before meeting Daniel, the idea of spending his money on music hadn’t really occurred to him, and since they’d started dating, Daniel had always met him outside. But today, it seemed, he had no choice but to venture into the dusty, old shop with its intimidatingly dissipated air.

 

A bell above his head rang out his entry as he pushed the dirty glass door open and slouched inside.

 

The guy behind the counter at the back of the shop glanced up at the sound, but, apparently unimpressed by what he saw, looked back down again almost at once. Phil paused and looked around, hoping that now he was inside he would find that Daniel had in fact been there all along, in some out of the way corner. He was doomed to be disappointed. There was nothing to be seen in the shop other than the ancient tour posters plastered across the walls and the rows of bins holding records, CDs, and a few cassette tapes.

 

Phil gritted his teeth and started wending his way up one of the rows and toward the counter. The guy there had long, stringy hair, a few patches of scruff on his chin, and a plaid shirt with the top few buttons unbuttoned to show an old t-shirt beneath. Phi wasn’t entirely surprised to notice, as he drew closer, that the t-shirt had “Nirvana” written across the top in tall, serifed letters.

 

He was idly flipping the pages of a magazine, and even when Phil had walked right up to the counter and stopped just inches from the man, he didn’t look up from it.

 

“Erm,” Phil said. “Excuse me.”

 

“What?” the guy said, looking up at last and blinking at Phil with a fuzzy gaze. “Oh, can I help you with something?”

 

“Yeah, I was looking for Daniel?” Phil said, trying to project confidence and knowing that he wasn’t quite succeeding.

 

“Looking for what?” The guy’s thick eyebrows pulled together, and his mouth dropped open a little.

 

“Erm, Daniel? He works here?”

 

“Oh, Daniel!” the guy said, his brow clearing. “He’s not here.”

 

“Oh,” Phil said. “Did he go home already?”

 

“Yeah, he got a phone call and then had to leave,” the guy was looking him up and down with an air of concern. “Are you a friend of his or something? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here before.”

 

“Oh, yeah, we’re friends,” Phil said, nodding perhaps a little too vigorously. “I guess if he’s at home, then I should—“

 

“If you’re his friend, then I guess you’re coming to Mick’s tomorrow?”

 

Phil opened his mouth, closed it, and then frowned. He had no idea who Mick was.

 

“I, er…yeah, probably,” Phil said. Why was he lying? He had no idea, but somehow it felt like the right thing to do.

 

“So cool about their demo,” behind-the-counter guy was saying, nodding slowly, so Phil nodded along with him.

 

“Yeah, very cool.” What the hell was a demo? Phil just grinned. “I, er, guess I’d better go now. See you, er, at the thing.”

 

“Cool,” the guy said and then went back to his magazine.

 

Ten minutes later found Phil standing at Daniel’s door wondering if it was all right that he was there. On the one hand, they had been planning to meet up today, but on the other, Daniel had mysteriously bailed on him. Maybe he was busy…or maybe he didn’t want to see Phil today after all.

 

Phil brushed aside the thought and knocked on the door.

 

Immediately he heard someone yelling on the other side, and he realized with a sinking feeling that Daniel was probably not alone. Was his mum here again? Maybe Phil should just go—

 

The door opened just a crack, and half of Daniel’s pale face appeared on the other side. When he saw it was Phil there, his eyes went wide, and he swung open the door, stepped out, and pulled it very softly shut behind him.

 

“Shit, Phil. Shit. I’m so sorry.” He had his hair up again today, and he was wearing a fitted, black t-shirt and his wide-legged jeans.

 

“Is something wrong?” Phil asked, taking in his tensed shoulders and creased brow. “The guy at the record shop said you went home early.”

 

“Tim?” Daniel blinked, his blackened lashes fluttering a few times in his confusion. “Oh, yeah. I did. I had kind of a…situation to deal with.”

 

Phil thought he could hear yelling inside again.

 

“Is it…okay now?” Phil asked, wanting to reach out and take Daniel’s hand or touch his shoulder or kiss the worry from between his eyebrows.

 

Daniel half-turned his head toward the door behind him, then looked back at Phil.

 

“I’m sorry,” he muttered again. “Can you come back tomorrow?”

 

“Oh, of course,” Phil said, but the end of his words was cut off by a distinct, loud yell of “Dan! Who is it?” from behind the door. It didn’t sound like his mum’s voice.

 

Daniel visibly cringed at the sound.

 

“I’m so, so sorry. Just, come back tomorrow after lunch time. Okay?”

 

He started to turn to go back inside, but Phil reached out a hand and took his wrist to stop him.

 

“Hey,” he said, keeping his voice just as low as Daniel’s had been. “Are you sure you’re okay? Do you need me to stay with you or something? I can stay.”

 

Daniel’s eyes turned back to meet his, and Phil saw something there, some veiled emotion he didn’t know the other boy well enough to read yet.

 

“You don’t need to do that. I’m fine,” he said, before shaking off Phil’s hand and reaching for the door knob. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

Phil nodded, and then Daniel was gone, and the door was shut in his face. There was nothing for it but to go home. He took the long route, wandering down to the park he’d stumbled across on the first day he’d met Daniel and then back past the record shop again. At last, he made his way up his own drive, where he was startled to find none other than his boyfriend sitting on the front steps of his house.

 

“Hi,” Daniel said, standing and brushing the dust of the concrete steps from his jeans.

 

“Hi,” Phil said.

 

“Can we, erm, talk?” Daniel asked, reaching up to smooth a strand of hair behind his ear and then gesturing back toward the road with his chin.

 

“Yeah, of course,” Phil said.

 

They walked a block further into Phil’s neighborhood before Daniel broke the silence.

 

“My parents aren’t home very often, but when they are, it can get a little…chaotic,” he said. He wasn’t looking at Phil but instead was staring off over the roofs of the houses on the other side of the street. “I’m sorry.”

 

“You don’t have to apologize,” Phil said. “It’s not your fault.”

 

Daniel shrugged, and they walked on in silence a ways longer. Phil noted that, for someone who’d said he wanted to talk, Daniel seemed to have very little to say.

 

“Hey,” Phil said as they neared the end of his street. The sun had sunk low already, and the clouds overhead had begun to glow a faint orange and pink. “Do you have to go back soon?”

 

Daniel glanced over at him before returning his gaze to the houses they were passing.

 

“I mean, I guess I should. I don’t want to keep you from your dinner.”

 

“No, I meant…” Phil paused, frustrated with his own inability to communicate. “Do you want to come over and have dinner at mine tonight?”

 

Daniel stopped walking and turned to look properly at Phil at last. Phil hadn’t noticed it until now, but the other boy’s eyes had a distinct redness to them, and there were tell-tale smudges at the edges of his eye makeup.

 

“I don’t want to intrude,” he said, but there was such longing in his eyes that Phil knew the refusal was merely for the sake of form.

 

“My mum told me last night I should invite you over,” Phil said, waving a hand as though brushing away Daniel’s objection. “You know she and my dad have been dying to meet you.”

 

Daniel’s lips parted, and for a moment Phil thought he saw another refusal forming there, but then it seemed all the fight went out of his expression, and he just nodded.

 

“Yeah, okay. I think I’d like that,” he said, his voice so low Phil barely caught it.

 

“Great!” Phil said, spinning on his heel and leading the way back up the street to his house. When they reached the door and pushed it open, Daniel hung back for a moment, and Phil thought he looked like he might be about to run away again. So, he reached out and slipped his hand into the other boy’s and pulled him through the door behind him. It was awkward getting the door shut with just one hand, but there was no way he was letting go of Daniel right now.

 

“Mum!” he called and heard a reply from the direction of the kitchen. So he pulled the other boy along behind him until they were standing in the kitchen, which was filled with the delightful scent of something baking in the oven.

 

His mum was sat at the table flipping through her book, but when she looked up and caught sight of Daniel, she set the book down and offered them a smile.

 

“Hello, you two,” she said.

 

“Can Daniel stay for dinner?” Phil asked, more for Daniel’s benefit than his mother’s.

 

“Yes, of course. Is chicken all right, Daniel?”

 

“Yeah, that sounds great,” Daniel said, and then added a, “Mrs. Lester,” on the end just for good measure.

 

“Good,” she said, standing and moving to the stovetop. “Can I get you anything? Tea?”

 

“We’re fine, Mum,” Phil said. “I’m just going to give Daniel the tour.”

 

She glanced over her shoulder, looking like she wanted to say something but had thought better of it.

 

“All right. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes, though,” was all she said.

 

“Got it,” he replied and then dragged Daniel out of the room by their still-clasped hands before she could add anything embarrassing. He could hear TV sounds from the family room and knew his dad was probably in there. They could stop there later, since Daniel had already seen that room anyway, and really “giving him the tour” was just an excuse to take him up to his room where they could be alone.

 

“So, these are the stairs,” he said as he led his boyfriend up them. When they reached the top, he continued, “That’s my brother’s old room. That’s the bathroom. And here’s my room.” He pushed the door open and then pulled it closed behind them. He hadn’t had a chance to clean up at all, considering he hadn’t been expecting any guests, and he blushed as he realized just how many dirty socks and empty glasses were scattered about.

 

Daniel didn’t seem to mind, though. He walked straight over to Phil’s bed, crawled up to the headboard and leaned against it with his knees pulled up beneath his chin.

 

“Your room looks like you,” he observed in a fair semblance of his usual confident tone. Phil wasn’t fooled though. He saw the way Daniel had his arms wrapped around his knees, almost as though he were trying to make himself small enough to disappear. Phil came over and settled at the foot of the bed.

 

“What do I look like, then?” he asked, pulling his own legs up onto the bed so he could sit cross-legged.

 

“Colorful and messy,” Daniel said, the ends of his lips curling up just a bit.

 

“Thanks, I think.”

 

For a long time, Daniel just sat with his chin on his knees, studying Phil in a way that made him really wish his parents weren’t just downstairs.

 

“I’m sorry for just showing up all of a sudden,” Daniel murmured at last, pulling Phil from his meditation on the way Daniel’s upper lip curved just so.

 

“What? Oh, don’t worry about it. You can come over any time,” Phil shrugged. He really wished Daniel would just explain whatever was going on. He could tell from the way he was acting that something wasn’t quite right, and he felt that if he knew what it was, he might be able to help…or offer comfort, or something.

 

“I just needed to get away for a little bit.” Daniel’s voice sounded so small that Phil couldn’t resist the urge any longer to move up to where he was sitting and put an arm around him. He felt Daniel’s head settle on his shoulder again, and something in his chest felt tight and painful and wonderful all at the same time.

 

“Phil!” his dad called from downstairs then, ruining the moment. “Dinner’s on the table!”

 

He gave Daniel’s shoulder another squeeze and then dropped his arm.

 

“We’d better go before they start thinking we’re up to something,” Phil muttered, which drew a snort of laughter from Daniel at last.

 

“I don’t think even I could work that fast,” he said, sitting up and then scooting off the bed.

 

Dinner was nice, if a little awkward. Phil’s parents had the usual slew of questions ready for Daniel: Where are you from (his accent made it clear he’d grown up somewhere else)? What do your parents do (apparently, “office work”)? How did you meet Phil (They ended up getting a version of the “met at the record store” story too)?

 

Phil was nervous that Daniel would clam up under all the scrutiny, but he seemed relaxed enough, answering their questions politely if not very thoroughly. When Phil’s mum had the wisdom to ask about his band, though, he opened up a bit more and even got lost for a while on a tangent about how most people just didn’t appreciate the artistry involved in creating metal.

 

“Phil tells us you work in a record store?” his dad asked when Daniel had finally finished his rant.

 

“Yeah, I’ve gotta make money somehow. We don’t get much for gigs, and we don’t have any albums for sale yet,” Daniel said, setting down his fork. They were all pretty much done eating by this point. “Though we have a demo tape that we’ve been trying to get out there.”

 

Phil’s ears pricked up at that. That guy, Tim, at the record store had said something about a demo. Was that what he’d meant?

 

“So, you see yourself sticking with the band for the foreseeable future?” Phil’s dad continued, and Phil bit his lip. That was a question even he hadn’t gotten around to asking Daniel yet. Sheesh, why did his parents have to be so nosy?

 

Daniel smiled and then shrugged a little.

 

“I think so, but it’s hard to know yet,” he said, and fortunately Phil’s dad dropped it after that.

 

Once he’d helped clear away the dishes, Phil decided that his parents had had plenty of time to meet Daniel, so he excused the two of them and dragged him upstairs again. It was late, and he knew the other boy couldn’t stay much longer, but he still wanted him to himself for just a few minutes more.

 

When they got to Phil’s room, Daniel wandered over to his bookshelf and started picking up books and reading the titles off. Phil sat on the edge of the bed and watched him, wondering what was going through his head.

 

“Your parents really are nice,” he said after a while, setting down Phil’s copy of _The Lord of the Rings_. His tone sounded a little incredulous.

 

“I’m sorry they were so annoying with all the questions,” Phil muttered.

 

Daniel came over then and settled down beside him, close but not touching.

 

“No, it’s kind of nice that they’re so interested,” he said, reaching a hand up and pulling on one of his ears. Phil had noticed that they were pierced, though he hardly ever saw him with earrings in.

 

“Hey, so,” Phil said, clearing his throat and hoping that would also clear his sudden nervousness, “when I told that guy at the shop that I knew you, he asked me if I was going to some thing tomorrow?”

 

Daniel laughed through his nose and then cast him a look out of the corner of his eye.

 

“Did he now?” His thin, black eyebrows rose. “Are you asking me if you can come?”

 

Phil shrugged. He was, but he didn’t want to admit it.

 

Daniel frowned and tugged at his ear again. Phil noticed that the bed was shaking and looked down to find that it was because Daniel was jiggling one of his knees.

 

“I mean, I don’t think… It’s not that I think you wouldn’t fit in, but—“ Daniel dropped his hand, his knee moving even faster now. “I don’t know. I just don’t think you’d be very comfortable there.”

 

Phil kind of felt like Daniel had just crushed his heart beneath the heel of one of his black combat boots.

 

“Oh,” Phil said, trying not to sound hurt and sounding very, very hurt. He knew the two of them were really different, that in a sense they lived in different worlds. He’d just thought that that didn’t matter to Daniel. Apparently he was wrong.

 

“I’m sorry… Fuck,” Daniel muttered, running a hand over his hair. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean… Fuck it. You know what? Just come. Okay, just come, and if you hate it, we can leave and just go back to my place.”

 

“Oh,” Phil said, a very different sound from the one he’d made a minute before.

 

Daniel turned to him at last, and his old smirk was back in place.

 

“You just have to promise to let me dress you before we go,” he said, his voice soft and low. It was still only spring outside, but Phil thought it might have turned to summer here in his room, as hot as his skin suddenly felt.

 

“Okay,” he agreed.

 

There was a pause, during which Daniel’s gaze dropped to the carpet for a moment before returning to Phil’s face.

 

“Do you think your parents would let you stay at mine tomorrow night?” Daniel asked then, reaching over and intertwining the fingers of his right hand with Phil’s left where it lay on the bedspread between them.

 

Phil swallowed hard. He had no idea whether his parents would agree to that or not, but at the moment getting their approval was the furthest thought from his mind.

 

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe. Maybe not, but I don’t care.”

 

“Then you should stay over,” Daniel said, giving his fingers a little squeeze.

 

“Okay,” Phil agreed.

 

There was a knock at his door then, which turned out to be his mum coming to say that she thought it was time for Daniel to be getting home. She offered to drive him, but he said he’d be fine walking. Phil was grateful that she at least had the decency to disappear once he’d walked Daniel down to the front door, which gave them a moment of privacy to kiss each other good-bye.

 

When Daniel had gone, Phil ran to the bathroom first to straighten out his face. Then, feeling far less confident now that Daniel’s warm hand was no longer clasped around his own, he made his way into the family room, where his parents were sitting on the couch in front of the TV.

 

“Hey,” he said, walking in and staking out a position on an armchair. They both looked up, and his dad put the TV on mute.

 

“Hello, dearest,” his mother said. “Did Daniel go home?”

 

Phil nodded, wondering how he was going to bring up the question he wanted to ask them.

 

“He seems like a very sweet boy,” she continued, “very passionate about music.”

 

Phil suppressed a nervous giggle. If only she knew.

 

“Yeah, he’s always making me listen to some new band he’s gotten into. He, er, he liked you guys too.”

 

“Well, that’s good to hear,” his dad put in, “It’s always nice to know your son’s boyfriend approves of you.”

 

Phil couldn’t help thinking of Daniel’s mum, and he opened his mouth to say something but then decided it was better not to. No reason why his parents needed to know all of Daniel’s private business.

 

“So,” he said instead, “there’s this, er, party that Daniel wants to go to tomorrow night, and I was going to go too.”

 

His parents looked a little startled at that, and he bit his lips to keep from frowning. He’d been to, like, two parties before in his life, not counting various friends’ birthday parties growing up. He was pretty sure that whatever tomorrow night’s event was, it wasn’t going to include balloons and cake and a magic show.

 

“Okay, as long as you aren’t out until all hours,” his mum said at last.

 

“Ahem, yeah,” Phil said, not quite able to meet her eyes. “I was thinking I would stay at Daniel’s place afterward.”

 

His glanced up in time to catch his parents exchanging a look, and Phil felt his heart hammering in the back of his throat. He didn’t know what he would do if they said no. He had every intention of spending the night with his boyfriend, no matter what, but he was also, like, the world’s least rebellious teenager. He’d hardly ever argued with his parents over anything more momentous than a low grade on a test.

 

After a long time, his mum turned back to him and said,

 

“We trust you, Phil, but just keep in mind that Daniel isn’t eighteen yet and shouldn’t be drinking at parties.”

 

Phil looked back and forth between his parents’ expressions, almost afraid to believe that they were actually agreeing without him even having to argue. They looked quite serious, which was disconcerting, but he also took it to mean that they were serious about trusting him.

 

“I will. Thank you,” he said, standing and walking over to give his mum a quick hug. She held on for too long again, but he supposed that was okay. “I’m gonna go, er, study,” he muttered when she finally let go. “G’night.”

 

“Good night!” his mum called after him.

 

“Don’t forget to use protection!” his dad added, and Phil was so, so glad he was already out in the corridor where they couldn’t see him blush.

 

 

 

He dreamed about Daniel that night, about the black wings of the crow tattooed on his shoulder and how dark they looked against the pale skin of his back, and he imagined tracing the edges of those wings with his fingers before he trailed them down that long expanse of smooth skin…

 

 

 

He headed over to the other boy’s house a couple of hours after lunch on Saturday. Daniel hadn’t mentioned anything further about his parents, but Phil assumed that since he’d asked him over at that time, they would be gone again by then. When Daniel opened the door, the house was quiet, and Phil felt a tension between his shoulder blades ease. It took Phil a moment to notice that Daniel had answered the door in nothing but a fitted t-shirt and black boxer briefs. He did his best not to let his eyes wander.

 

Daniel was standing in the doorway giving Phil a slow up and down.

 

“No,” he said at last. “No, you can’t wear any of that.”

 

Phil glanced down at his shirt and shorts combo and felt his forehead wrinkling up and his lips turning down. He knew he wasn’t exactly the height of fashion, but he didn’t think his clothes were _that_ offensive to the eye…

 

“Nothing personal,” Daniel said, reaching for his wrist to pull him inside. “You’d just stick out like a sore thumb.”

 

“Okay,” Phil muttered, allowing himself to be led into the house.

 

On their way up the stairs, Phil had the most breathtaking view of Daniel’s backside, and by the time they reached his bedroom, Phil had completely forgotten to feel affronted.

 

“All right,” Daniel said, pointing toward the bed, “have a seat while I decide what to do with you.”

 

Phil, who had just been about to go for a cheeky squeeze of his boyfriend’s butt, frowned and did as he was told. At least his seat on the edge of the bed gave him an excellent vantage point for observing Daniel while he rummaged through his wardrobe. As this required a lot of bending down to pick things up or stretching up to reach something from the top shelf, Phil supposed he couldn’t complain too much.

 

The other boy may or may not have been aware of the fact that he was putting on a show for his boyfriend. He seemed quite engrossed in pulling out various items of clothing, holding them up, glancing over to scrutinize Phil, and then shaking his head. At last, he found something that made him smile instead of shake his head, and he shut the wardrobe door and came over to where Phil sat.

 

“How brave are you feeling?” he asked. Phil couldn’t really tell what he was holding in his hands, other than the fact that it was black.

 

“Erm…a little bit brave?” Phil ventured.

 

“I want to see you in this,” Daniel said, holding up what turned out to be the see-through shirt that Phil remembered only too vividly. Phil was pretty sure his whole body blushed. “Just try it on,” Daniel cajoled, “for me?”

 

He was doing that thing with his eyes and his eyelashes that Phil could absolutely not resist.

 

“Fine,” he grumbled, reaching for the top button of his shirt.

 

“No, no, let me,” Daniel said, tossing the mesh shirt onto the bed and brushing Phil’s hands aside.

 

He undid the buttons very slowly, leaning forward over Phil with his dark hair brushing the sides of his face, and since Phil was still seated on the bed, Daniel had to kneel down to reach the lowest buttons. When he’d gotten Phil’s shirt completely off, though, he didn’t stand up again. Instead, his fingers continued down to the button of Phil’s shorts, where they paused.

 

“We should take these off too,” he said, tilting his face up so that his eyes could meet Phil’s again.

 

Phil could only nod, his heart beating so hard he thought it might be about to break free from his chest.

 

So Daniel undid the button and unzipped his shorts, and Phil stood up a little so he could pull them off, and then he realized they were both just in their boxers now.

 

“Er, what…. Erm, what are you—“

 

“Just a little preview,” Daniel said, reaching for the elastic band of Phil’s boxers.

 

Phil stopped breathing for a moment. He wasn’t sure what Daniel was doing, but he had a pretty good idea. He kind of wished it were possible to go back in time and change his answers to that nurse’s questions.

 

When he felt Daniel’s tongue, his first instinct was to close his eyes because _fuck_ that felt amazing, but after a few minutes, he decided he wanted to watch. He was glad he did because Daniel’s eyes were fixed on his face, watching him the entire time, and he was pretty sure he’d never seen anything more beautiful than the expression in them right at that moment. It reminded him of the day they’d first met, when the goth boy had sat and stared at him, focusing on the way his face looked as he listened to one of his favorite songs.

 

It was over unfortunately quickly, and Daniel crawled up beside him where he’d collapsed onto the bed. When Phil had caught his breath, he pulled him over for a long kiss and explored the strange new taste in his boyfriend’s mouth.

 

“You’re really good at that,” he said after a while, but Daniel just laughed.

 

“It’s not as difficult as you’d think,” he said.

 

“Is that a hint?” Phil asked.

 

“Maybe.”

 

Daniel coached him through it, but really, like he’d said, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as he’d thought it would be. He also completely understood, now, why Daniel had been staring at him like that. He’d pick watching his boyfriend’s face while he went down on him over even the best movie he’d ever seen.

 

Somehow it ended up being a full hour between the time Phil arrived at Daniel’s house and when they actually got down to the business of picking out an outfit for Phil to wear to the thing at Mick’s house.

 

When he at last pulled on the mesh shirt and walked over to the mirror to see how it looked, his face turned first deathly pale and then a bright, shiny pink.

 

“No way,” he muttered, shooting Daniel a look over his shoulder. “There’s absolutely no way I’m wearing this out in public.”

 

“You look amazing,” the other boy said, walking over and resting his chin on Phil’s shoulder to make it easier to admire his reflection in the mirror. He sighed. “Well, at least _I_ got to see it. Okay, we’ll find you something else.”

 

Eventually he decided on a plain black button-down shirt and his least voluminous pair of black jeans, adorned with a couple of chains hanging from the pockets, which he complained was far too boring an outfit, but which Phil still felt he looked like a completely different person in. However, Daniel had insisted on Phil letting him physically dress him himself, and he certainly wasn’t going to complain about that.

 

After that, Phil was subjected to the eye makeup again, which he actually secretly enjoyed, no matter how much he grumbled about it to Daniel. It was so soothing sitting all still and quiet while the other boy lightly brushed things over his eyelids. He was half asleep by the time it was over, and Daniel had to shake his shoulder a little to get him to open his eyes.

 

“How do I look?” he asked, feeling too lazy to get up and go to the mirror.

 

“Pretty fucking hot,” Daniel grinned, “though I wish you’d let me dye your hair.”

 

“Maybe in the summer, once I’m completely done with school,” Phil hedged, still not really sure he wanted black hair. Daniel had gone on and on about how great it would look, but Phil had put him off, saying he didn’t think his school would like it.

 

“Fine.” Daniel rolled his eyes as he scooted off the bed. He was still only in his shirt and boxers, and it was getting close to five now. Apparently the party was supposed to start sometime around 6:30, and they were going to have to take a bus to get there.

 

Phil had thought that Daniel was heading over to his wardrobe to pick out his own outfit, but instead he sat down next to his crate of CDs and held two of them up for Phil to view.

 

“What do you think?” he said, giving each a little shake in turn. “ _Disintegration_ or _Wish_?”

 

“Erm, either one is fine,” Phil said. He had no idea what the difference between them was, as Daniel had never played either album for him before.

 

“Phil, this is important,” the other boy sighed. “I’ve always thought I would lose my virginity to The Cure. I’d prefer _Disintegration_ , personally, but if you have an opinion—“

 

“Oh,” Phil said. “Er, yeah, I think that one would be good.”

 

“Good,” Daniel agreed with a little smile, and he set the CD out on top of the CD player, ready and waiting for when they got home from the party later.

 

They’d discussed their plans for that night all throughout the afternoon, when they were lying on Daniel’s bed, or when Phil was trying on various shirts that he thought he looked horrible in. It was clear to him that Daniel had been thinking about this for a while now, planning out exactly how their first time would be. Phil was kind of glad for that, as he’d spent very little time over the course of his life planning out how he would have sex since he’d basically given up hope of it ever actually happening. It was nerve-wracking thinking that it was really, truly going to happen now, tonight, but talking it out with Daniel helped to ease some of his nerves. After all, if it was something they could just sit around and discuss on a lazy Saturday afternoon, it couldn’t be that scary.

 

Phil sat back against the headboard then and watched as Daniel pulled off his shirt and then proceeded to try on at least ten different outfits before deciding on what he wanted to wear to the party. It turned out to consist of a pair of black jeans containing a dizzying number of zips in various places and a long-sleeved black top that only properly covered one shoulder. The other occasionally peaked out just enough for Phil to see the tips of a pair of black wings spread across the pale skin of it.

 

“So, you still haven’t told me what exactly this thing is we’re going to,” Phil said when Daniel was at last bending over in front of his mirror drawing on his own eyeliner.

 

“Oh, yeah,” he said, his voice slow and distracted. He was busy concentrating on getting the line straight. “It’s a celebration, sort of, for the band.”

 

“Why are you celebrating?” Phil asked after a moment, as it seemed Daniel had gotten caught up in doing his makeup and forgotten they were having a conversation.

 

“Our demo,” he replied, setting down his eye pencil and picking up a brush for eyeshadow, “got noticed by this producer in Manchester, and he wants to work with us on recording a couple of tracks.”

 

Phil’s eyes popped open, and all he could do was stare at his boyfriend’s apparently unconcerned back. What???? Why was this the first he was hearing about this?

 

“When did that happen?”

 

“Er…” Daniel said, focused on smoothing a midnight blue color over one eyelid, “a couple of weeks ago. He sent an email to our band email account.”

 

“That’s…really cool,” Phil said, excited for Daniel but also puzzled about why he hadn’t bothered telling him about this for two weeks now. Sure, they hadn’t been dating for very long, but most of the time, Daniel couldn’t seem to shut up about his music. (Not that Phil wanted him to shut up. Daniel’s ability to go on obscure rants that Phil only barely understand was actually kind of a turn on.)

 

“Yeah, I guess,” Daniel was saying as he twisted open his usual black lipstick and began sliding it over his lips. 

 

“Wait, aren’t you excited about it? I mean, isn’t that a really incredible opportunity for you guys?” Phil couldn’t seem to wrap his head around Daniel’s unimpressed attitude.

 

It was a moment before he answered Phil’s question, and whether that was because he was hesitating or he actually needed all that time to perfect his lip color, Phil didn’t know. At last, he turned from the mirror and came over to join Phil on the bed.

 

“It is,” he said, picking up Phil’s right hand in both of his and giving it a light, playful shake, “and I’m very excited about it. Are you ready to go now?”

 

Phil decided to just drop it for the moment. They were already running behind schedule, and he supposed that Daniel would tell him everything in his own time.

 

Once they were on the bus, Daniel sneaked his hand over to Phil’s side of their pair of seats and took hold of Phil’s fingers again.

 

“Stick with me at first, okay?” he murmured in Phil’s ear, making him shiver at the tickling sensation. The bus wasn’t very crowded, but there were enough people to make it necessary to keep their voices low. “And don’t eat, drink, or otherwise consume anything that anyone other than me gives you.” He paused, and Phil saw a frown crease his brow. “You don’t drink, do you?”

 

Phil shrugged and made a noncommittal gesture. He’d had a beer once at a party that he remembered being one of the most vile-tasting things he’d ever put in his mouth, but another time he’d been staying over at a friend’s house, and they’d managed to finish off an entire pack of Smirnoff Ice between them. It was the only time Phil had ever been drunk, but though the feeling hadn’t lasted very long, he had actually kind of liked it.

 

“Er, I don’t really drink, but if there’s anything that tastes good I might have one,” he said after a moment.

 

“Oh, okay,” Daniel said, his frown deepening. “I don’t really know what they’ll have, but we can ask.”

 

Phil’s first impression of the party — created when they were still quite a ways away — was that it was very loud. He could make out the faint thump of a song’s bass line even from dozens of meters up the road. This didn’t seem to be an issue for the neighbors, though, as their bus trip had taken them out a ways into the country where the houses were spaced far apart.

 

“The last bus is at 11:15,” Daniel said as they made their way up to the front door of a reasonably-sized house, “so we’ve got to make sure to leave well before then.”

 

“Right,” Phil nodded, reaching for the other boy’s hand and clinging to it tightly as they stopped before the closed door. Daniel had had one fist raised, ready to knock, but at the feeling of Phil’s hand sliding into his, he glanced down and then up into Phil’s eyes.

 

“Keep holding onto me like that, and we’re not even going to make it to 8:30,” he murmured before giving the door a firm rap with his knuckles.

 

A girl opened the door to them. She was small with dark skin and hair twisted into two knots on the top of her head. She had black lipstick like Dan’s and a red plaid shirt worn open over a tiny white tank top.

 

“Took you long enough,” she snorted when she saw Daniel. “Everyone’s half drunk already.”

 

“Oops,” Daniel said, pulling Phil through the door behind him when the girl had stepped aside to let them pass. “By the way, this is Phil. Phil, this is Liza.”

 

“Nice to meet you,” Phil called over his shoulder to the girl as he was dragged away. She just nodded and gave him a little wave, and then they rounded a corner, and he couldn’t see her anymore.

 

They were suddenly in a crowded living room stuffed full of couches and people, which seemed to be the epicenter of the ear-splitting noise. Phil had to resist an urge to reach up and plug his ears with his fingers. Daniel still had tight hold of his hand and was leading him over to an empty space on one of the couches, which was fortunately on the opposite end of the room from the speakers that were blasting the guitar-heavy music.

 

The moment they were seated, people started coming up to them, greeting Daniel and eyeing Phil with interest. He wasn’t too surprised to discover that many of them seemed to be wearing even more black than Daniel. There were lots of people in t-shirts for bands like Korn and Metallica, as well as a wide variety of facial and body piercings on display. One thing that Phil started to notice pretty quickly was that everyone was older, even than he was. He was pretty sure he and Daniel must be among the youngest people here.

 

Tim from the record shop was one of the first to come over, and he spent several minutes enthusing over how great an opportunity this was for the band and how some day he would get to say he knew them back when. Phil watched Daniel’s expression carefully out of the corner of his eye as Tim spoke. He looked so unmoved that Phil found himself actually starting to worry. He didn’t have a chance to ask for an explanation, though, for as soon as Tim was gone, someone else came over. They all said more or less the same things — how excited they were for the band, how they expected to someday see their names in lights. Daniel answered politely, and Phil began to zone out until he found himself suddenly addressed directly.

 

“So you’re our Daniel’s new boy toy,” someone was saying, and Phil tore his eyes away from a girl’s full back tattoo he’d been examining to see a twenty-something guy with a shaved head and an impossibly chiseled jaw line hovering above them.

 

“Erm,” Phil said, not quite sure how he was supposed to respond to that. Neither “Yes” nor “No” seemed to be the appropriate answer.

 

“He’s my boyfriend, yeah,” Daniel interjected, to Phil’s relief. “His name is Phil. Phil, this is Ian. He’s our lead vocalist.”

 

“Nice to meet you, Phil,” Ian said, offering Phil his male model grin and a hand to shake.

 

“Nice to meet you, too,” Phil replied, holding out his hand. Ian’s hand shake was firm and warm and kind of made Phil’s skin tingle.

 

“Need a drink?” Ian asked, raising his own beer, presumably as an example of what was on offer.

 

“I’ll get it!” Daniel said, letting go of Phil’s hand at last and jumping to his feet.

 

Ian shrugged and then led Daniel away, and Phil was left sitting on the couch all alone in what was probably the most intimidating roomful of strangers he’d ever been among. Daniel had hardly disappeared before someone dropped down in the space he’d vacated. It was a girl who had burgundy hair with a fringe cut straight across her forehead and a very low-cut top.

 

“Hi, I’m Mandy,” she said. “What’s your name?”

 

“Phil,” said Phil, feeling suddenly entirely bereft of speech.

 

“How did you find LSD?” she asked, tilting her head to one side in what he highly suspected was a flirtatious manner.

 

“How did I find…what?”

 

“LSD,” she repeated, crinkling her forehead at him like she couldn’t believe he didn’t know what she meant.

 

“I, er, I’m sorry. I don’t do drugs,” Phil said. _Crap_. That was definitely the wrong thing to say.

 

She kept staring at him for a moment before her entire face crumpled up and she let out a shout of laughter.

 

“Oh my fucking god,” she howled after she’d been laughing for at least a solid minute. People nearby were staring, and Phil was wishing there were some way the couch he sat on could just absorb him.

 

Luckily for Phil, Daniel appeared in front of them again just then, holding a bottle of something in one hand and a bottle opener in the other, and when the girl caught sight of him, she turned her attention to him instead of Phil.

 

“Daniel! Fucking, listen! Just fucking listen to this. I asked him how he found LSD, and you know what he said?”

 

Phil just looked up at his boyfriend with a pleading expression, and though Phil could see the amusement twitching at the corners of Daniel’s mouth, he had apparently decided to take pity on Phil.

 

“I suppose he said that he doesn’t do drugs,” Daniel said, raising an eyebrow and then applying the bottle opener to the bottle’s cap. “Here’s your drink, Phil.” He held the open bottle out, and Phil grabbed it and immediately took a long swig.

 

“I don’t do drugs!” Mandy repeated again, clutching her knees and laughing very loudly in Phil’s face yet again. “That’s the best fucking—“

 

“Do you mind if I sit here?” Daniel asked, pointing at Phil’s lap. Before Phil could answer, though, he plopped down on Phil’s thighs, settling his back against the arm of the couch and placing the bottoms of his boots against Mandy’s jeans. “Can you scoot over a bit? I wanna stretch out.”

 

“What?” she asked, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “Oh, oh, yeah. Sorry, I was just going actually.” She stood from the couch, shaking her head and muttering “I don’t do drugs” to herself one more time.

 

When she’d gone, Phil turned a hopeless expression on Daniel, who couldn’t help letting out a small chuckle of his own.

 

“LSD is the name of our band, Phil. Lucid Sex Dreams?” He spelled out the letters in the air for him: L. S. D.

 

“Oh,” Phil said, taking another long drink from the bottle in his hand. He didn’t even know what it was, but it tasted like raspberry lemonade and not at all like alcohol, so he was fine with it.

 

“Don’t worry about it too much,” Daniel grinned, leaning in and brushing his lips against Phil’s in the lightest of kisses. “You should have other things on your mind right now.”

 

“Like what?” Phil asked, though now that Daniel brought it up, he was thinking pretty constantly about the feeling of Daniel’s ass cheeks pressed against his thighs. The other boy leaned in close to his ear and added a few other items to his mental list, and Phil was very glad all of a sudden that Daniel’s body obscured his lap right at the moment.

 

Across the room, a whole group of people burst into laughter, and Phil looked over to see Mandy bent over in a full-belly laugh in the middle of all of them. Great. He was probably never going to live that down.

 

Someone else came over and sat down next to them, then, who turned out to be the bassist, Mick, the host of the party. He was already pretty far gone, slurring his words so badly that Phil could only make out about half of what he said.

 

“Can’t believe, though, you know? Manchester!” Mick said, reaching out one hand to clap Phil on the shoulder in his excitement. “Y’know what I mean?”

 

“Yeah,” Phil said, though he really didn’t. He glanced at Daniel, still comfy on his lap, hoping for some sort of enlightenment, but he noticed that he had fallen strangely quiet. His shoulders were hunched up, and he had that same curled-in-on-himself look that he’d had at Phil’s the night before.

 

“Hey,” Phil murmured to him, ignoring Mick’s ongoing monologue. “You wanna go outside or something? Get some fresh air?”

 

Daniel was still for a moment, his eyes fixed on his knees, but then he nodded and climbed off Phil’s lap at last, and Phil followed behind, taking his hand and pulling him back out toward the front door.

 

Unfortunately for them, Mick hadn’t taken the hint, and he ended up following them all the way outside into the chilly spring night. At least it was quieter and less crowded out here, which made the tall bassist’s indistinct rambling a little more tolerable. Nevertheless, Daniel was still looking extremely uncomfortable for some reason, so Phil decided maybe he should tell this Mick guy to buzz off.

 

“Look,” he said, turning to Mick, who had one hand pressed against the side of the house to prop himself up. “Maybe you should get back inside to your guests.”

 

Mick stopped talking at last and stared at him for a moment, and Phil thought his words had actually done the trick, until suddenly his face took on a queasy expression and then, before Phil even knew what was happening, the guy was doubled over and retching into the bushes of the front garden.

 

Phil tried to take a step back, but he found that his way was blocked by some solid mass that had appeared on the ground behind him. Startled, he looked down to find Daniel crouched in a ball at his feet, with his fingers stuck in his ears and his face buried in his knees. Phil could see his back heaving up and down with every breath he was taking.

 

He sank to his knees beside the other boy, placing a hand on his back.

 

“Daniel?” he whispered, but there was zero response. Phil had no idea what was wrong or what he should do, so he just crouched there beside the other boy and rubbed his hand up and down his back as the minutes ticked past and he grew more and more worried. Behind him, he heard the front door open and close again, and then came Ian’s voice.

 

“Mick, you stupid bastard. Get the fuck back inside.”

 

“What?” That was Mick, still sounding rather vague.

 

Phil glanced around and saw Ian dragging Mick up the steps and pushing him into the house before closing the door on him. Then he was walking over and crouching down beside the two of them.

 

“Sorry that happened,” he said. “He’s gone back inside now.”

 

Daniel finally gave a small nod at that, though he kept his face firmly pressed against his knees. Phil glanced back and forth between the singer and his boyfriend, frustrated at his complete lack of understanding. However, he could remember Daniel telling him that if he hated the party, they could just go home early. Surely that applied to both of them.

 

“Do you want to just go home now?” he asked. It wasn’t even 10:00 yet, so it shouldn’t be difficult to catch the next bus. Daniel was still for a moment, and then at last his fingers slid down from his ears and onto his cheeks instead.

 

“We don’t have to,” came Daniel’s very small, very muffled voice. “I’m sorry I ruined everything.”

 

Phil exchanged a glance with Ian, wishing he could just ask him to explain what was going on. The other man shook his bald head. Now was not the time for explanations. Phil had to suppress a sudden feeling of jealousy, realizing that this (really unreasonably attractive) man probably knew more about his boyfriend’s life than he did.

 

“You didn’t ruin anything,” Ian put in then. “I’ll just tell the others you went home early to fuck your boyfriend here.”

 

Daniel let out a tiny noise at that, and Phil thought it might have been a shaky laugh.

 

“I really don’t care if we leave now or not,” Phil added. “I’m only here for you.”

 

Daniel lifted his head just enough to meet Phil’s eyes, and Phil could see black streaks trailing down both his cheeks.

 

“Are you sure?”

 

Phil nodded, letting his lips curl up in a small, reassuring (he hoped) smile.

 

“We were gonna cut out early anyway,” he reminded him, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, hoping it would get another laugh from the boy.

 

Daniel’s eyes dropped down to his knees again for a moment, but then he slowly sat upright and held a hand out to Phil, who took it, stood, and pulled him to his feet. Beside him, Ian stood too. As soon as Daniel was upright, Phil put his arms around his shoulders and pulled him in tight against his chest. He was still breathing so hard.

 

“You should be able to catch the 9:50, if you hurry,” Ian was saying. Phil met his eyes and nodded. The singer looked like he might say something else for a moment, but then he just shrugged and turned toward the door. “I’ll let the others know you’ve gone,” he called over his shoulder.

 

“Thank you,” Daniel lifted his head and said, just before the door closed behind him.

 

“Ready?” Phil asked, running his hands up and down Daniel’s back, feeling like he still needed soothing.

 

“Yeah, let’s just get the fuck out of here,” he muttered against Phil’s neck.

 

Phil kept an arm tight around his shoulders as they made their way back up the road to the bus stop. He didn’t know if he should try and ask what was wrong or just wait for Daniel to tell him, as it seemed he always had to. At the bus stop, Daniel leaned against him almost as though he were incapable of supporting himself at the moment, and Phil decided it was best not to push him.

 

They rode the bus home in silence, Daniel’s head on his shoulder and their fingers twined together on the seat, never mind the fact that people were staring. 

 

At long last, they were walking through the door of Daniel’s house, which was blessedly dark and silent, and Phil was leading the other boy up the stairs and toward his room. However, when they reached the bedroom door, Daniel tugged on his hand to stop him.

 

“I want to take a shower,” he said.

 

“Okay,” Phil said, letting go of his hand and starting to push open the door.

 

“No,” Daniel said, picking up his hand again. “I want you to come with me.”

 

So Phil followed him across the hall to the bathroom, where he let Daniel undress him and then undressed Daniel in turn, and then they huddled under the hot water together, and scrubbed each other’s backs, and he finally had the chance to trace the full outline of the crow on Daniel’s shoulder.

 

When they were dry and back in Daniel’s room, he fished out pajamas for both of them to wear, and then they climbed into his bed and under the duvet, and Daniel whispered, “I’m sorry.”

 

“Why are you sorry?” Phil asked, putting his arms around the other boy’s neck and drawing him close against him once more.

 

“We had all these big plans for tonight,” Daniel murmured into his chest. “And I just had to go and ruin them.”

 

“You didn’t ruin anything,” Phil said, leaning forward so he could press his nose against the top of Daniel’s head. His hair was a little damp from the shower, but Phil didn’t care because it still smelled like Daniel.

 

He felt warmth against his chest then and realized the other boy was sighing.

 

“I have emetophobia. It means I can’t stand seeing people vomit,” he said, his voice so small that Phil could barely hear it even in the quiet room. “It’s so weird. It’s such a weird thing to have, but it, like, totally freaks me out.”

 

“That’s not that weird,” Phil said, squeezing his arms around the other boy even tighter. “It’s not exactly something that’s pleasant to be around.”

 

Daniel was silent for a moment, and Phil could feel his chest slowly rising and falling with his breathing.

 

“It’s not that,” he said at last. “I think it’s my dad, actually.”

 

“Your dad?”

 

“Yeah,” Daniel muttered. “He’s…drunk a lot, and he…yeah…he does that a lot. And I always hated seeing him like that growing up, and I think… It’s not, like, a logical thing. But I get absolutely terrified whenever I see it.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Phil said because there was nothing else he really could say about Daniel’s life or his shitty parents. He’d thought — hoped really — that there would be something he could do, something he had to offer that would make it better, but he was starting to realize there really was nothing. All he could do was keep holding him and saying he was sorry.

 

“No, I’m sorry,” Daniel was countering, pulling back a little so he could meet Phil’s eyes in the dark of the room. “I really wanted to have sex with you tonight.”

 

Phil felt a shiver in his stomach at that, and he had to tell his body to shut up. Now was not the time.

 

“It doesn’t have to be tonight,” Phil said. “I just like being with you.”

 

He saw a faint glitter in the dark — Daniel’s eyes catching the light as they moved across his face.

 

“Yeah?” Daniel said.

 

“Yeah,” Phil agreed, leaning forward to press a soft kiss against the other boy’s lips.

 

“I think I love you,” Daniel whispered when he pulled away.

 

Phil’s heart was clamoring in his chest, and he felt his face splitting open in an involuntary grin.

 

“I think I love you too,” he said and leaned in for another kiss.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr.


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